For as long as I can remember, I have had an unusual ability to remember advertising slogans/commercials. I can remember commercials I saw on TV or heard on the radio when I was very young…everything from cleaning products to beer commercials. My most recent memory was the revamp of the Miller Beer commercial I saw last week- I can still sing the old jingle. It’s amazing the imprint advertising makes, and how long it lingers…which brings me to the topic of this blog entry.
As Seen On TV…
I was watching TV the other night and an ad came on for the Diamond Producers Association. I had seen two different commercials from them in the last day or so, so I decided to Google the campaign to see what the message for 2018 was; and here’s what I found. The title of the article from Adweek was “The Diamond Industry’s First Campaign in 5 Years Encourages Millennials to make a ‘Real’ Committment” and the goal of the campaign “positions real diamonds as the truest symbols of a deep emotional commitment between two young people”. It goes on further to say regarding the two commercials titled “Runaways” and “Wild and Kind” that ” The resulting ads serve as intimate, impressionistic portraits of two relationships at pivotal moments. In keeping with the campaign’s premise, both of these romances follow non-traditional trajectories.” Here’s the link here in case you want to read the entire article
Say that again?
Let’s look at that again…”positions diamonds as the truest symbols of a deep emotional commitment between two young people”. Hmmm, I have a different opinion about that. Rather than debate what a true symbol is or is not, or what defines true love and commitment to yourself of anyone else, I want to share what jewelry symbolizes to me, and not specific as to whether it’s a ‘real’ anything or not.
I believe in order to love someone else fully, you have to love yourself first. Throughout my life, even before owning a jewelry store, I commemorated special moments in my life with jewelry. When I took a trip, instead of a T-shirt of other tourist targeted souvenir, I always purchased a piece of jewelry that represented where I went. A lapel pin with a grape vine from California, Cloisonne and Jade from China, Amethyst from Brazil. But it wasn’t just to commemorate travel, it was also to recognize milestones in my life. Remember what I told you about remembering commercials and ads? I can also remember every piece of jewelry I received as a child, who I got it from and why…and I still have many of those pieces today. But I can also tell you about the pieces I lost, but more about that later.
I’m A Big Girl Now…
When I was young and out on my own supporting myself for the first time, I decided to take a big adventure and travel from New Jersey to Florida to visit a friend. My first time on an airplane, my first travel not with my family. The ticket cost $ 99 round trip on People’s Express. I still remember what I wore – black chinos, a beige sweater and a white jacket with beige pinstripes and a necklace made of seashells that matched the pattern in the weave of the sweater I wore and the color of the pinstripes in my jacket. I remember folding my jacket on my lap and smoothing it over and over to be sure it didn’t wrinkle – I didn’t want to step off the plane wrinkled on my first important trip. I was 19 years old.
On that trip I bought a ring that I chose and paid for myself. My independent woman ring. It wasn’t very expensive, but it was gold and I bought it at a fine jewelry store – mind you I couldn’t afford 99% of what they had there, but I found something I could afford that made me feel special when I wore it, and my friend worked there so I did get an employee discount.
My mother always said that good jewelry was an investment and she was right. When I purchased my first piece of fine jewelry, I invested in a memory – a deep, emotional commitment to myself. When it came to choosing an engagement ring the second time, I told my husband “when the love is genuine, the diamond doesn’t have to be”. I didn’t own Diamontrigue back then, but genuine love was way more important to me so I asked him to choose a ring from Diamontrigue instead. I had a son to put through college, we’d both been through divorces and were very honest with each other about what was “Real” to us.
Genuine Love Lasts…
Isn’t that what ‘Real’ is all about? Real commitment to one another’s dreams; real understanding of where they’ve been, real support for where life will take them, challenges and all? It’s that kind of “Real” my parents shared for nearly 65 years. It’s that kind of “Real” you bring into a relationship that makes it last…whether the gemstone is real or not is irrelevant. #genuinelovelasts.